


i’m at an all time low

by burnfield



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, i’m giving nya her own arc, skybound rewrite, the love triangle never happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24642487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnfield/pseuds/burnfield
Summary: basically i’m rewriting skybound. i’m putting more of a focus on nya than canon did. the love triangle never happened, but nya did still break up with jay. work title from all time low by jon bellion
Relationships: Cole & Jay Walker, Cole & Lloyd Garmadon & Kai & Nya & Jay Walker & Zane, Cole & Nya (Ninjago), Echo Zane & Nya & Jay Walker, Jay Walker & Zane, Kai & Nya (Ninjago), Nya/Jay Walker
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

Nya was tired. She was tired of her identity being “the girl ninja”, “Kai’s sister”, and more recently, “Jay’s ex girlfriend.” Why couldn’t she be “Nya, the elemental master of water, and the newest ninja.”? Her identity has been connected to others for so long, she was fucking sick of this shit. 

...And then that interviewer just had to make it worse. Asking the other guys what their favorite moves were, what their motivations were, why they became ninja, etc. But when it came to her… 

“Why did you break up with Jay?” “Is there another boy on the team you’re eyeing? Maybe Cole?” “Did you become a ninja to be like your big brother?” 

She grit her teeth and said “I don’t see how that’s relevant. I am the newest ninja and the elemental master of water. Why do I always get different questions than the others???” 

The reporter just laughed uncomfortably and moved on to asking Lloyd something. Nya wanted to storm off. She was upset and just wanted to punch a training dummy or scream into a pillow or whatever. When the interview ended, she immediately ran to her vehicle and drove to the Destiny’s bounty. Since it was parked over the water, she propelled herself up with it, not having learned airjitzu yet. The training dummies had been set up and she immediately started taking them down with various kicks, punches, and streams of water. 

“I see you are back from the interview. How did it go?” Wu said as he walked out, observing Nya train. 

“Horrible. They always ask the others these in depth questions and then I get the “girly” questions. And that’s not the half of it! The others always get asked to advertise normal things like reading or whatever, but they always ask ME to advertise make up, or teach cooking, or advertise fashion! All they see me as is the “girl” ninja and I’m TIRED of this BULLSHIT!” Nya ranted as she took down another dummy. 

“Language, Nya. It is not up to us how we are perceived, but it is up to us how we respond to that perception. You must rise above what others see you as. None of that matters, only how we perceive ourselves.” 

“It’s not- I work just as hard as the others!! I literally SAVED Ninjago from the Preeminent!!! And all I am is the “girl ninja”. It’s so.. ARGHH!!!” She took down the final dummy and stormed off into her quarters, just as the others arrived. Jay stared at the doorway she disappeared into, and made to follow her, until he was stopped by Kai. 

“She’s upset. Let her calm down and be by herself for a bit, okay?” Jay nodded in response. Kai walked off to check the computers and go on social media, and Jay lingered for a little while longer, staring into the empty doorway. He wanted to go talk to her, to ask if she was okay, and if she wasn’t, to talk to her. But he knew he was probably the last person Nya would want to see right now. She had recently broken up with him, and even though she reassured him that she still loved him like a friend, and that it wasn’t his fault at all, he couldn’t help but feel like maybe he didn’t do enough for her. Or that he wasn’t enough for her. After all, she deserved better than a boy born in a junkyard. He went to sit across from Zane, who was setting up chess pieces. 

“What is bothering you, Jay?” Zane said as he made his first move. 

“I just… I know Nya said it wasn’t because of me that we broke up, but I can’t help but wonder, y’know? If I could’ve done something more.” Jay made his move. 

“It’s been an intense time for her. She only recently became a ninja and learned she could control water. She still cares about you, I am sure of that.” Zane said as the two of them continued to make their moves. “Checkmate.” 

“Dangit, not again!” Jay said as he examined how he lost. “I know she cares about me, but I still can’t help but feel like this. I love her, and I know we’re meant to be, but she doesn’t feel the same way as I do. Even when it’s destiny I screw it up!” 

They reset the pieces, and just as Zane was about to respond to Jay, a familiar voice appeared out of nowhere. “How many losses does that make? 100??” Cole said as he literally popped out of thin air. “Anyway, check this out!!” He said with a smile, turning invisible and back. 

“That is a wonderful achievement, Cole! I take it you are enjoying your ghostly form?” Zane said, as Jay stared with his mouth agape in awe. 

“I mean, I miss being mortal and all. But damn if this isn’t cool!” Cole said, turning invisible and back again. 

“That is. SO COOL!” Jay exclaimed. “Can you still be physical when you’re invisible?? Oh my god you could scare Kai SO badly with that, I can imagine the look on his face now!!” Jay exclaimed, breaking out of his awe-inspired stupor. 

“I haven’t worked out all the details yet, but you know I’m gonna pull some awesome pranks. And maybe get extra cake.” Cole said with a wink. 

“What time do we have to go meet L’il Nelson at the hospital, by the way?” 

“Approximately in 20 minutes. In 5 minutes I will get Nya, Lloyd, and Kai, and we will head off on our elemental dragons.” Zane said, smiling. 

“Ninja!!! Emergency!!!” Wu yelled from the control center. The ninja all ran to the control center, where Wu began to explain. “Clouse has been seen getting a ticket for a train to Stiix. We don’t know what he’s up to, but you had better stop him. It’s definitely not good.” They all yelled confirmation, until Kai piped up. 

“Don’t we need to go to meet L’il Nelson at the hospital though? He’s got two broken legs!!” 

“Dealing with Clouse is much more important than visiting him. That’s important too, but we can do it tomorrow. We need to catch Clouse first.” Lloyd said, showing his leadership of the group. They all went on their dragons, and began their journey. 

“Hey, there’s the hospital,” Cole said as they passed over Ninjago city. “You think we can stop by for a quick visit?” 

“If we do not encounter any problems, we should be able to visit L’il Nelson and still be able to catch Clouse.” Zane replied. 

“Great, then let’s head down for a quick visit.” Lloyd said, directing his dragon to the hospital. They talked with L’il Nelson, signed his casts, and declared him an honorary ninja for the day. Unfortunately, as they were getting ready to leave, stampeding was heard down the hall. 

“That… constitutes a problem.” Zane said, realizing what was happening. Fangirls and fanboys were storming the hospital, and they wouldn’t stop until they found the ninja. 

“How could they have figured out where we were???” Lloyd asked, until his eyes set sights on Kai, typing on his phone. “Kai, did you tweet where we were??” 

Kai only looked up before exclaiming a slight “Ah, shit.” 

“I know a roof exit, you guys can head out through there!” L’il Nelson exclaimed, happy to be able to help the ninja. 

“Thanks, little buddy!” Kai said, before ruffling L’il Nelson’s hair. They then proceded to follow L’il Nelson as he led them through the hallways to a stairwell. Unfortunately, the stampeding was getting louder and louder. 

“This is as far as I go, I’ll hold them off!” L’il Nelson exclaimed, waving to the ninja as they got on the stairwell. 

“Thanks, L’il Nelson.” Lloyd said, gratefully. 

“Not L’il Nelson. Call me… the purple ninja!” L’il Nelson said as he donned a purple ninja hood he himself had made. 

Lloyd would’ve asked if he had made it himself, had the stampeding not gotten louder and they needed to get to the roof. Unfortunately, when they got to the roof, there was a ton of helicopters in the air. They immediately airjitzu’d to cover behind a billboard… except for Nya. 

“Take my hand Nya! They’ll spot us if you don’t!” Jay yelled, trying to help. 

“I don’t need your help!!! I can do this myself!!!” Nya yelled, before trying to jump and spin at the same time, to no avail. 

“Just take his hand Nya!!!” Cole said, feeling extremely alarmed as a helicopter was slowly getting closer. She kept jumping, and failing, until a helicopter pulled up. 

“What do we have here?” Darreth said, with a camera pointed at the ninja. 

“Darreth! We need to get to Stiix to respond to an alert. We don’t have time for stupid promotional material!” Lloyd yelled, hoping Darreth would understand. 

“Ooh.. a mission. That’ll get good views.” Darreth said, before throwing down a ladder. “Hop on in!” The ninja got in, hoping they’d be in time to catch Clouse. Little did they know, Clouse would be the least of their worries. 

At that moment, Clouse was arriving in Stiix. Immediately, he tried to find what he was looking in the vast piles of rubble left from the Preeminent’s attack on Ninjago. He was trying to not attract attention, as any one of the Stiixians could’ve easily led to his departure from the living world. He grinned evilly as he found what he was looking for, a gold lamp that shined brighter than any gold he had seen before. He immediately rubbed it, and waited. Shortly after, a white cloud appeared, and a very big man appeared waist up above the cloud. He had tanned skin, a lot of muscles shown by not wearing much other than a green armored vest, a mustache, and he was bald other than a ponytail at the back of his head. He stared at Clouse with an evil glint in his eyes. 

“I am Nadakhan, the Djinn prince. Who summons me?” 

Clouse smiled, he couldn’t believe it had worked! He responded, “My name is Clouse… and I believe I can get three wishes now, oh great genie?” 

“Djinn, and yes. But you should know the rules. You cannot wish to harm another, you cannot wish for more wishes, and you certainly cannot wish for love!” Nadakhan said, taking in Clouse with his gaze. 

“Yes, yes, I am aware…” Clouse responded. “My first wish… I wish to get my book of spells!” 

“Very well. Your wish is yours to keep” Nadakhan said, poofing up a book into Clouse’s hands. Clouse began to page through it, until it disintegrated into ash. 

“What the hell is this?” Clouse exclaimed, looking in alarm at what used to be his prized spellbook. 

“You wished for your book of spells, but you did not specify what condition. Since it was burned, it is currently ash. Do you have your next wish?” Nadakhan explained, the grin on his face only growing wider. 

“Fine, fine. I suppose I can’t beat those pesky ninja as a ghost, so… I wish to be mortal!” Clouse exclaimed, not seeing how his request could be manipulated. 

“Your wish is yours to keep.” Nadakhan’s smile only grew larger. Clouse began to turn solid, and look like his old mortal self. Unfortunately at that point, he began to grip himself in unbearable pain, moaning and groaning about how terrible it felt. “Ah, the process of becoming mortal is very painful. All those new sensations overload your ghostly senses, causing you great pain. I bet you had a third wish set up, but at this point you cannot think of anything other than…” 

“I wish for it all to go away!!” Clouse yelled out in pain. 

“Your wish is yours to keep.” Nadakhan said, grinning more than anything, as Clouse got whisked away into the lamp that had originally been Nadakhan’s prison. 

Yes, Clouse would be the least of the ninja’s problems.


	2. infamous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oops the ninja got framed

The ninja arrived at Stiix and began to look around. Zane scanned the city, but no sign of ghostly activity showed up, other than Cole, who was still turning invisible and trying to scare Jay. 

”Clouse is not here.” Zane explained, “It appears as though we missed him.” 

”I knew we should’ve rescheduled the hospital visit! Now we gotta prepare for whatever he’s planning, AND we’re gonna get yelled at by Master Wu!!” Lloyd complained with a scowl. Kai pet his back, and leaned down to pick something up. 

”It’ll be okay, Lloyd, it always is. Besides, when is Wu not yelling at us?” Kai said, fiddling with a small doll in his hands. “Anyway, look at what someone lost! I wanna see the look on the owner when we return it, they’ll be so happy!” He held up a doll of himself with a smile. Nya rolled her eyes at her older brother. Kai then noticed a bigger pile of dolls, and dropped his with a frown and a whine. This many dolls wouldn’t just be “lost”. 

The ninja went to sit down to brainstorm what Clouse could have wanted in Stiix, as well as take a break from the constant paparazzi and adventure. They were in disguise, so none of the workers at the table next to them recognized them. The news began to show the ninja, so Lloyd asked the workers to turn the volume up. They did so, but began talking about how they hated the ninja in Stiix, claiming they had destroyed the town. The ninja wanted to argue, but were interrupted by what they saw on the news. 

It showed each of the ninja committing various crimes. Stealing, vandalizing, terrorizing, and things they would never do. The ninja each shouted out that they’d never do it, it wasn’t them, they were framed, until the workers looked over at them suspiciously. The ninja covered their faces and began discussing. 

”Shit. What do we do now?” Kai asked, nervous and uneasy. 

”We have to meet up with Uncle Wu and Mom. Then we can make a plan and get this all sorted out.” Lloyd said, trying his best to stay calm. “We’d better leave soon rather than later though-“ He was interrupted by the workers looking at them very suspiciously. 

”Say, ain't you guys the ninja?” One of them asked, walking towards the ninja. 

”No, nononono, we’re just that other group of 6 with a nindroid, a girl, a ghost…” Jay trailed off as the workers began to attack. The ninja evaded easily, and escaped to a rooftop. Lloyd called Misako, who was inbound and was just about to pick them up when she got taken down by the police. The ninja retreated underneath the floorboards, evading cranes coming down to grab them, and they finally jumped on one in order to avoid detection. 

“We have to split up.” Kai stated, saying what everyone else was thinking. 

“But what if one of us gets into trouble?? Bad things always happen when we’re split up!!!” Jay yelled, scared about what was going on and not wanting to be alone. 

“We’ll have to take that risk. We are more susceptible to detection if we are all together versus if we are all apart.” Zane explained, and the ninja each went their separate way. 

Nya immediately knew where to go. Almost no one knew where it was, and she’d be able to do recon there easily. The public still didn’t know she had been Samurai X, so she could still go back to that to avoid detection. She entered the cave, forming a plan of what she would do. She’d use the Samurai X surveillance systems to find any leads on what happened, then get a disguise and a vehicle from the hangar to follow up on the leads and let the others know. She got right to work, bringing up security cameras. As she looked at the screen, a shuriken suddenly came from the shadows. 

Jay had no idea where to go. He just put his normal-clothes hood up and kept running. He was scared. He knew he hadn’t done the things he was being accused of, but everyone other than the ninja thought he and the others were criminals. Everything had been okay just 12 hours ago. Now everything was not okay, and he was stressed, and out of breath, and upset. He stopped in front of a bar to catch his breath, and while doing so he realized he was very hungry. He noticed that the door was open, so he ran in, and asked the bartender if they had any food. The bartender tiredly looked at Jay, pointed to a vending machine, and then went back to watching the television. 

Jay ran to the vending machine, eager to eat something. It was there that he realized he had no money. He checked to see if the bartender was watching, and sent a small electrical current into the vending machine to get a snack. The TV switched to a press conference however, about the ninja. The police chief was answering questions, and describing how the ninja were dangerous. This made Jay's anxiety spike, and the electrical current became too strong, causing many snacks to fall. He took what he could and ran, right before the bartender looked to see what had happened. Jay sat down on a bench, and began to cry. He wasn't safe anywhere. He ate the snacks he had gotten, and thought about how he wanted his friends, his parents, Nya… He just needed some comfort and familiarity. He lied down, and slept as best he could on that cold bench.


End file.
